Friday, November 04, 2005

Connecting the dots

Veteran TV Anchorman Walter Cronkite was called "the most
trusted man in America" when he held forth on the CBS
Evening News for a generation. Now, he says, he doesn't
trust you. "I do not think the majority of our people [is
capable] of making the decisions that have to be made at
election time and particularly in the selection of their
legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of
course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that
would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in
serious danger."

Cronkite's remarks recall those of Washington Post
reporter Michael Weisskopf who a few years ago called
Evangelicals "poor, uneducated, and easy to command." It's
no surprise that the liberal media elite think this way;
what's surprising is that they so openly avow their contempt
for the American people. It stands to reason, therefore,
that such elitists view with horror the thought of anybody
except federal judges making the really important decisions
in America. That's what these fights over confirmations are
really about: Who governs? We have no intention of giving up
on democracy in America. Sorry, Uncle Walter, but that's the
way it is.

Who govers -- that's an important point. Cronkite
doesn't. Weisskopf doesn't. Tom DeLay does. What does his
staff think of Perkins' followers?

Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing
Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay,
R-Texas, sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe
his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business.
In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent
Republican electoral victories: target religious
conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad
through complex initiatives.

"The wackos get their information through the Christian
right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone
trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the
public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to
vote against something and make sure the rest of the public
lets the whole thing slip past them." The brilliance of this
strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know
about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues,
but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting
gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they
were opposing it.

Tick...tick...tick...how long until Perkins condemns
Scanlon and DeLay for calling his followers "wackos"? How
long until he condemns the legislative strategy of tricking
his voters into voting against their interests?